For the third week in a row the Packers won by out-scoring their opponent, falling a field goal short of a third consecutive 40+ point game in a 37-30 victory over the Saints. This could be said to be the team’s first real test of the season, playing on the road against a team with a top-tier quarterback in Drew Brees. The Packers have a tough stretch of games coming up, including at the Buccaneers, with Tom Brady seeming to find his groove, aided by some dangerous playmakers. The Packers needed to get this game out of the way with a win to provide the confidence they will . need going forward, particularly since the Bears may not have to keep winning in come-from-behind fashion if they decide that Nick Foles is the guy they want as their quarterback.
There isn’t much that needs to be said about the offense. The Packers scored on seven of their nine offensive drives, punting just once and turning the ball over on downs another time--which turned out to be a wash because the Saints immediately fumbled the ball away. After a pedestrian start, Aaron Rodgers completed 12 of 16 for 177 yards and two touchdowns in the second half. This was was a less balanced attacked than the previous two games, with “only” 98 yards on the ground. After last week when he accounted for half the team’s total yards, Aaron Jones came back down to earth, with 69 yards on the ground and 17 yards on receptions.
With Davante Adams out of the line-up Marquez-Valdes-Scantling was predictably not a factor, catching only one pass out of four targets, but Allen Lazard looked like a number one receiver, catching six passes for 146 yards, including catches of 72 and 48 yards. Two “no-name” tight ends--Robert Tonyan and Jace Sternberger--picked up the slack and together caught all eight of their targets for 86 yards. It is useful to remember that last year Rodgers had his best four-game stretch when Davante Adams was injured; we can presume that the team is better with Adams on the field, but Rodgers did not play tentative against the Saints, and with the two long passes to Lazard, he now has completed 5 of 7 passes of over 50 yards down field; last year, he only completed that many over the course of the entire season.
The Packer defense is still a question mark, however. If the team is going to surrender 362 yards per game, it is going to have to force more than the three turnovers it has over the first three games if it is going to prevent the opponent from scoring an average of 28 points per game, which is simply not acceptable for a team with Super Bowl aspirations. As some of us may recall, after a 15-1 regular season in 2011 which was only possible because the team was averaging 35 points a game, it suffered a humiliating 37-20 loss to the Giants in their first playoff game.
Brees may be a HOF quarterback, but he is definitely at the twilight of his career; he did not throw a single pass of 20 yards or more down field, yet even just dinking and dunking all day was a problem for a Packer defense that can’t tackle. Alvin Kamara’s 52-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown was absolutely inexcusable, as five Packers had a chance to tackle him and whiffed; the fact that 313-pound lineman Tyler Lancaster was the one who finally manged to trip up Kamara as he fell into the end zone should be embarrassing for the secondary. In fact the Packers had trouble getting their hands on Kamara all day, including on a 49-yard rush, while catching 13 passes for 139 yards. With upcoming games against teams like the 49ers, the Buccaneers and even the Texans with plenty of playmakers to cause havoc, something is going to have to improve.
The Packers play another nationally-televised game next week, against the Falcons on Monday night. The Falcons are 0-3, but this is not a gimme game, since they are averaging 30 points a game themselves; one suspects, however, that Rodgers and company should have a time of it against a defense that is allowing 36 points a game.
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